Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Dr. Khoureis: It’s an action called model. You have Serve, Care and Love. These are these are your motto, really. Your logo. What you live by. Why do people care?  Why do we have to serve? 

Ron: Well, let me go backwards a little bit. Give your audience a little bit of background. My grandmother taught kindergarten for 40 years, and at one point she was named one of the top teachers in New York City. She only had one child, my dad, but he had five kids so it was like a private kindergarten. I used to get the privilege of going to her kindergarten. I was even younger than the kindergarten kids and I watched her love every single child, which is why ultimately she was named such an incredible educator. 

Dr. Khoureis: She’s your role model? 

Ron: She was my role model for love. Like, just really everybody deserves it. You can live your own life in a way that really loves and takes good care. Okay. When I came to Singapore in 1990… Actually before that, I got involved in Ultimate Frisbee when I was in college. You know, the sport. I’m in the Ultimate Frisbee Hall of Fame because at the time that the sport was being created, I was one of the Johnny Appleseeds that took it not only to college, but took it around the world. 

Dr. Khoureis: Good for you. 

Ron: The first rule is called The Spirit of the Game. The Spirit of the game says that the people who are on the field playing  the game are responsible for the quality of play and the experience of play. No referee. That’s really, I think, where I learned care. Like, you have to actually care. This was self care. Yeah. Yeah. You have to care about your opponent, care about the community and the spectators etc.. 

Then I came to Singapore in 1990 and that’s where I really learned what service is and defined it as service is taking action to create value for somebody else. Then I ended up teaching all over the world. In fact, I just pulled these out recently. These are my passports. Wow. Just how much implementation of this. 

Dr. Khoureis: You coined a new term for care. 

Ron: Well, it’s interesting that the phenomenon of care. I used to define service as taking action to create value for someone else, well, very well for 30 years. And then I realized,  you know, the kind of service I’m really committed to, it can’t just be someone else. And so I rewrote it as service is taking action to create value for someone you care about.  Oh, but that raises the question, what is care? Yeah.  And care, it turns out, was as much confused and an abstraction as service was when I met it 30 years ago. So I really started digging in, and say, hold on a second, let’s deconstruct this.  Let’s reconstruct this from the fundamentals. What care is, is its concern. Like “I care”,  but it’s concern with commitment. I’m concerned and I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to take care. It’s concern and commitment to someone or something’s well-being. Which means then, like, when you think about your kids, you care about your kids, but not just in this moment.  You care about them in the future as well.  So the full definition really would be care and commitment to future well-being. Yes, in the moment  but the moment just became the past. Yes. So I’m actually devoted to your  “Well, how do you take care?” You have to put your commitment into action. Oh, yes, that’s the service part.  So these two are very, very closely connected. Now, I realize this is not being taught in school.  What’s missing?  How could this not… such a fundamental answer to what it is to be human with other people as social creatures. How can this not be taught?  What is it that’s not being taught? I realize that the world of care has been captured either by health care or by philosophers. That wasn’t adequate for you and me and most of our listeners.  Those people are not there. Exactly. I started developing a curriculum that would help to answer the question,  “What does it really mean to be human?” “Why is it that we care about what we care about?” How do you get clear about what matters to you? Then how do you take good care and appreciate and respect the how and why other people care about what they care about? So I got deeper into the field.  I looked for it. It wasn’t in sociology, it wasn’t in philosophy, It wasn’t in anthropology. It wasn’t. So I invented the word “CARE-OLOGY”, and found that it didn’t already exist.